Feeling Her Pain
by Jason Barnett
Summary: Oz isn't a separated from the Scooby Gang as you might think


Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply, they belong to Joss etc.  
  
The wolf howled.  
  
Of course since the beast was locked inside him, Daniel 'Oz' Osbourne was the only one who heard it. 'Quiet down. I'm going to her.' He knew it was useless, he was lucky he was able to control the wolf right now. Something had happened to Willow and the wolf had lost control due to the pain it's mate was in.  
  
'Glad no one was around." Oz spent as little time around people as he could these days, unless it was someone who could help with the beast within. He pushed the thoughts of what could've happened when he involuntarily changed and examined his hands. The damage to his fingernails, since they corresponded to his claws in wolf form, showed just how savage the fury had been. He decided that he'd had enough thoughts on what had happened and just tried shut down his brain. Settling back against the crates in the cargo hold of the plane he stowed away on, Oz drifted off to sleep.  
  
He woke a few hours later, startled to find the wolf slightly quieter. It must've realized that he was going home. Everytime he'd wolfed-out involuntarily since he left he found he always woke up closer to Sunnydale. He'd done some research trying to figure that out. It seemed werewolves would do almost anything for their mates and considering they had the instincts of a wolf trapped in the very adaptive mind of a person with a magical nature to back it up the could do a lot. It explained how his sense of smell had improved enough to track Willow when she and Xander had been kidnapped by Spike. And it explained how the wolf had forged some sort of connection between them when Buffy had been dead.  
  
He hadn't heard about the Hellgod in Sunnydale until Xander wrote him telling him about Buffy's death and had been offended they hadn't asked him to help. He hadn't thought about Dawn much but he realized the wolf snarled whenever he did recognizing the fact she shouldn't have been there. Xander'd mentioned that they nominated Willow the group's new leader and so he hadn't been surprised when he'd received the letter from Willow a few days later. She probably didn't realize Xander had already sent one and there were certain things she'd feel she had to do as leader. Still it was the only thing other than Christmas and Birthday cards he'd recieved from her in two years. He'd written back asking if she wanted him to return, she'd replied the help would be appreciated but he didn't have to unless he wanted to. It was less than the warm elcome he was hoping for so he stayed away.  
  
Then he'd started hearing her voice. It drove him nuts for awhile then he'd realized from the conversations he heard it was some sort of telepathy. His initial fear that Willow was showing him how happy she was to make him more miserable was unfounded as it soon shifted from everyday conversation to battle plans. She was guiding the Scoobies in their fights. And he was picking it up because she was sending out to the Scooby Gang and he felt he was still a member just a longtime hiatus.  
  
He'd gotten a little upset with the rest of the group. They always seemed to concerned whenever she did a spell, granted he been that way when he'd left. But she'd apparently gotten very good, had a fellow witch to teach her and besides she was in charge now. Asking her not to do magic when fighting demons would've been like asking Buffy to dose herself when the Watcher's Council's Cruciamentum drugs before each battle.  
  
Eventually she'd stopped using the spell and Oz figured that was the end of it. But the wolf had intervened, refusing to be seperated from it's mate again. It's hadn't been able to hold onto the spell but it'd taken that connection and somehow held onto it enough that he could sense her emotions. She'd been in a lot of pain for a very long time. It seemed like things were starting to get better though.  
  
And then came the explosion of pain. Take the pain he felt when he'd seen Willow and Xander kissing, then add the pain he'd felt when he'd wolfed out directly in front of her and been sure he'd wake up to find her mauled body in front of him and multiply it but the certainty he'd lost her forever when the vampire version of her had entered the Bronze. It was soul shattering and he'd lost control of the wolf, who'd apparently lashed out at everything it could get it's claws on. Somehow he knew Willow had been lashing out at the same time and he wasn't sure if his rage had magnified hers or hers had amplified his or if they had simply been two wounded souls striking out at out whatever was nearby.  
  
And he'd woken up to bloody hands and feet from claws ripped out and the pain dulled from soul shattering to consuming, a feeling of helplessness and being trapped and just waiting for the end. So he'd packed a few things and headed for an airport where he crawled into a plane's cargo hold. Buffy'd said it was how Kendra traveled and he'd found it was scarily easy to do.  
  
There were dangers to going to Sunnydale, of course, the least of which was he's simply be told to leave, that he was no longer welcome. The wolf could become tainted as it had before. He'd seen pictures of himself when he'd first become a werewolf and later on he'd changed. He'd looked normal when he had been away from Sunnydale for a while but when he got back, according to everyone he looked as he had when he'd left. The wise men he'd spoken to said it was due to the Hellmouth, that it encouraged evil and so it had affected the wolf by supressing the human less and less. And while wolves were predators they did not hold grdges and deal in anger the way people did.  
  
But this was for Willow, she was in pain and it was putting him in pain and the problems could be solved once they arose. 


End file.
